Nothing Phone (2a) Review

The Nothing Phone (1) 11 made waves when it first debuted a few years ago with its quirky design and unique lighting features. Last year, the brand introduced its successor with the Nothing Phone (2), featuring some major refinements and overall improvements.

However, if there is one issue with the Nothing Phone (2) 20 it is the price. It’s not exactly the most affordable phone on the market, starting at Php 38,990 for the 12GB+256GB variant. While it does offer good price to performance value, not everyone can cough up that amount. 

This year, though, there’s a more budget-friendly Nothing Phone with the new Nothing Phone (2a) with prices starting at just Php 18,990. Since it’s more affordable, it is down on specs compared to the Nothing Phone (2). But, is it worth it? Well, let us find out in this review. 

Design and Construction

As you would expect, the design of the Nothing Phone (2a) looks similar to that of the original Nothing Phone (1) and the Nothing Phone (2). It is their signature design language after all, so there is no need to change it up. 

One of the biggest differences is that the camera is positioned at the top center of the phone in a landscape layout as opposed to the top left. Another difference is the number of Glyph LEDs. While there are 33 LEDs on the Nothing Phone (2), the Nothing Phone (2a) only has 3 which are found around the camera housing.

Unlike the Nothing Phone (2), the (2a) also uses a plastic back panel instead of glass. The frame is also made out of plastic, so you don’t get that premium feel as you would, especially if you’ve tried the Nothing Phone (1) and (2). The phone does feel sturdy though, and it also has good weight to it. 

The volume rocker is found on the left side of the phone, while the power button is on the right side. They’re placed in the middle of the frame making them easily reachable with one hand and also for users with smaller hands.

At the bottom, you’ll find the dual-sim card slot, a USB-C port, the main microphone, and the loudspeaker. A secondary microphone sits at the top, while the earpiece speaker doubles as a loudspeaker when watching videos. So yes, you get stereo loudspeakers even on the Nothing Phone (2a). 

Overall, the use of plastic materials does make the Nothing Phone (2a) not feel as premium especially if you have tried the Nothing Phone (1) and (2). But, it does feel sturdy and you get the IP54 resistance. It’s not as heavy too, weighing only 190g. However, the white color of the unit we have does hide the Glyph Lighting.

Display, Biometrics and Multimedia

Open up the Nothing Phone (2a), and you’re greeted by a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 2412 x 1080 resolution. I was surprised to find it is not the same LTPO OLED display used on the Nothing Phone (2) even though the resolution is identical. That doesn’t mean the display of Nothing Phone (2a) is bad though. There’s also a fingerprint scanner embedded at the lower center of the screen.

The original black theme once you boot up the phone does not give you a good grasp of the colors the display offers. Yes, you do get very deep blacks, but it is when you watch videos do you start to see how colorful the screen is. You can even change the colors between Alive, which gives off more vivid colors or standard.

Not to mention you also have a bright backlight with a peak of 1300 nits. This makes it more than adequate if you plan on using the phone under direct sunlight. With a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, you also get smooth animations whether you’re going through the menu, watching videos, or playing games.

For reference, the Nothing Phone (2a) can play YouTube videos up to 2160P, and it is here that you get to fully immerse yourself in the phone’s display. Not to mention the viewing angles are quite decent.

But whether you are watching videos or playing games, you will enjoy the stereo loudspeaker of the Nothing Phone (2a). You have decent bass and the mids are quite clear. More importantly, the speakers are loud enough for watching in a group.

OS, Apps and UI

The Nothing Phone (2a) runs on Nothing UI 2.5.4 which is based on Android 14. The skin itself looks really cool, and it is one of the features that make the Nothing Phones rather distinct from other Android smartphones. Most of the apps end up featuring a unique monotone design, although some still have colors like Genshin Impact.

As expected, you get the usual host of Google services, and there is no bloatware which is great. Although you do get some of Nothing’s apps like the Nothing X and Safety. There are also various personalization options to choose from.

The feature you’ll likely be tinkering with a lot is the Glyph Interface. Here, you can adjust how bright the Glyphy lighting is, have a volume indicator, and more. You can even integrate the Glyph with 3rd party apps to your liking. Meanwhile, music visualization automatically syncs the glyph lighting to the music that’s playing, and it even works with YouTube.

Camera

Let us talk about the cameras on the Nothing Phone (2a). Like the Nothing Phone (2), you get a dual rear camera setup with two 50MP sensors. The first one, which is the main shooter, features a f/1.9 wide lens, while the other is a f/2.2 ultra-wide. At the front, there is a 32MP camera for selfies.

Sounds familiar? Because that seems to be the same camera setup found on the Nothing Phone (2). With that, it’s no surprise since the photos taken by this phone often come out great. They’re sharp, and you do get good details all around.

However, even in well-lit conditions, some of the photos look overly saturated and edited for my liking. Overall, they are great, and to the more casual photographers, you can even upload these directly onto social media.

The same can’t be said, though when taking photos in low-light conditions or at night. The photos aren’t as sharp, you get a lot more noise, and the difference from when you were shooting in the day is very obvious. The phone’s AI algorithm doesn’t do a great job enhancing the photos either since you lose detail.

To some of you readers, the sample low-light photos are still usable. But there are better phones for taking photos in low-light conditions or at night.

There aren’t too many camera modes to choose on the Nothing Phone (2a) from aside from Portrait mode, which is the other one you’ll likely use. While you do get decent bokeh, the camera does take a while to figure out what part of the image to blur out. Like before, you can use Glyph Lighting to give the subject some fill light.

In terms of video, the Nothing Phone (2a) can record up to 4K@30FPS. Like the photos, the video quality is decent during the day and in well-lit environments. However, the quality does drop off once you start losing light similar to the photos.

Check out the gallery below to see the photos we took using the Nothing Phone (2a).

Here’s a sample selfie shot from the front camera:

Here are some sample 4K video clips from the main camera:

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Nothing Phone (2a) is a MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro. Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The storage space might seem adequate, but if you plan on taking a lot of photos, and downloading games it might end up lacking in the future.

Remember, there is no storage expansion for the Nothing Phone (2a). If you get the 128GB variant, you’re limited with space even further. With that, better be mindful of the apps you download.

In terms of performance, the Nothing Phone (2a) is smooth when you’re going through the menus and for day-to-day tasks. But it does seem to lag when you have multiple apps running in the background. Even when you’re just watching YouTube videos and switching from 480P to 1440P, you’ll notice the video lagging and frames jumping.

When gaming, the phone can easily run lighter games without issues like Mobile Legends, Asphalt 9, and CoD: Mobile. But when playing more graphics-intensive titles like Genshin Impact, you have to tweak the settings a bit to have a longer and more enjoyable gaming experience.

Granted, it can run the Genshin at max settings and 60FPS, but the phone does heat up after a while. And once it heats up, that’s when you’ll notice frame rate drops and lag.

To give you a better idea, check out the benchmark scores below.

Battery and Connectivity

The battery on the Nothing Phone (2a) is a 5,000mAh unit, which is standard in most phones today. It lasts very long if it’s just for day-to-day use, which includes checking emails, scrolling through social media, watching videos, and listening to music.

I did notice the battery drains quite fast if you end up binge-watching videos on YouTube or Netflix and/or playing games for extended periods of time. This is especially true when the phone eventually heats up from long gaming sessions or playing graphic intensive titles like Genshin Impact.

Based on PC Mark’s Work 3.0 Battery Test the Nothing Phone (2a) scored an impressive 17 hours and 34 minutes at 50% brightness, zero volume and in airplane mode.

We also played a few Ranked games on Mobile Legends and managed to get a result of 7 and a half hours of gameplay at 50% brightness, 50% volume and in WiFi mode.

When you do need to recharge, you get a 45W fast charging which is decent in juicing up the battery.

Overall, this phone is very power-efficient and managed to beat its more powerful siblings, the Nothing Phone 2 and Phone 1 in the same tests. Mediatek wasn’t lying when they said the Dimensity 7200 Pro as “best-in-class power efficiency”.

In terms of connectivity, you get the complete options here — 5G/4G connectivity, WiFi 6 support, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC and GPS.

Conclusion

In all, the budget-friendly Nothing Phone (2a) may look like its more expensive counterpart. But, it doesn’t have the solid overall build feel I got from the Nothing Phone (2). You also get less Glyph Lighting to play with, which is one of the unique points of both the Nothing Phone (1) and (2).

While it is still a great phone, I feel the performance and camera aspects could use some improvement. Still, the Nothing Phone (2a) is nearly half the price of the Nothing Phone (2), and at PHP 18,990, it will be hard to find a phone that stands out in terms of design.

But what do you think of the Nothing Phone (2a)? Is it something that you’ll consider or would you rather save up a bit more to buy the Nothing Phone (2) or maybe even a different model altogether? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Nothing Phone 2a is now available in the Philippines via local retailer Digital Walker. The Nothing Phone 2a comes in two configurations: 8GB RAM + 128GB storage priced at PHP 18,990 and a 12GB + 256GB combo for PHP 20,990.

What we liked:
Great design
Long battery life
Decent performance

What we didn’t like:
Phone heats up when gaming
Camera could be better

Nothing Phone (2a) specs:
6.7-inch Flexible AMOLED Display, 1080×2412 pixels, 394ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 5, 120Hz adaptive refresh rate
HDR 10+, 10-bit color accuracy, 1,300 nits peak brightness
MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro (4nm)
2x Cortex-A715 2.8GHz + 6x Cortex-A510 2.0
Arm Mali-G610 MC4 GPU
8GB, 12GB LPDDR5 (+8GB RAM Booster)
128GB, 256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage
Advance Liquid Cooling System
5G / 4G LTE
WiFi 6E
Bluetooth 5.3
GPS
NFC
50MP f/1.9, (wide), PDAF, OIS
50MP f/2.2, (ultrawide)
4K @ 30fps, 1080p @ 60/120fps, gyro-EIS
32MP f/2.2 Front Camera
1080p @ 60fps
True Lens Engine, Ultra XDR
IP54 Certified
Glyph Interface
Nothing OS 2.5.3 (Android 14)
5,000mAh Li-Ion battery, 45W Fast Charging
Black, Milk White